Illegal procurement favouring Microsoft killed in Portuguese court

on: 2013-05-02

On April 27, the administrative court of Almada, Portugal, declared a 550, 000 Euro contract between Microsoft and the municipality of Almada to be illegal. The technical specifications of the competition launched by the municipality prevented any company other than Microsoft and their partners to submit a proposal.

This ruling is especially significant as it clarifies that a widely used procurement procedure is illegal. The procedure specified the name of Microsoft products instead of their general functional and technical requirements.

Unfair tendering practices in Portugal have been repeatedly denounced by FSFE's Associate Organisation ANSOL and the Portuguese Open Source Business Association ESOP, who brought the case to court. They violate fundamental rules of fair competition and systematically exclude companies that provide services based on Free Software.

FSFE welcome the court's decision, and calls on other European national courts to continue to systematically annul similarly discriminatory contracts.